Slovyansk is currently Ground Zero for the chaos in Ukraine that is continuing despite an agreement signed last week by the US, Ukraine, Russia, and the EU. Hundreds of enraged residents of that city along with "self-defense" forces and Russian special ops people buried three dead from the recent shootout that that say was caused by radical right-wing Ukrainian loyalist factions.
Pro-Russian forces contend that the three men were killed by members of the Ukrainian nationalist group Right Sector, which helped to overthrow the government in February. Kiev, in turn, attributed the violence to provocateurs who wanted to further embitter people in the eastern part of the country against the interim government.
In retaliation, two people were tortured to death, prompting Ukraine to call for a resumption of their military operation to remove Russian special operations forces, "self-defense" forces, and protestors from government buildings in East Ukraine.
In an appeal that may complicate European efforts to mediate the crisis, Turchynov said two “brutally tortured” bodies had been found near Slaviansk, the location of the failed Ukrainian army offensive.
One is believed to be Volodymyr Rybak, a member of Turchynov’s Batkivshchyna party, who had recently been abducted by “terrorists,” he said in a statement.
“These crimes are being carried out with the full support and indulgence of the Russian Federation,” he said. “I call on the security agencies to re-launch and carry out effective anti-terrorist measures, with the aim of protecting Ukrainian citizens living in eastern Ukraine from terrorists.”
From the New York Times link, the crisis is shutting down economic activity in the east. For instance:
Margarita Krymskaya, who runs a small cafe in Slovyansk across the street from the Ukrainian Security Service office, which is occupied by pro-Russian forces, said that she now lived life “behind the barricades,” but that she continued to support anti-Kiev militants.
Since pro-Russian forces captured the building this month, her cafe has closed and she has been unable to pay her staff.
And one local priest said there were foreign forces in the area and said the divisions could be lasting.
“Many people here are trying to drive a wedge into society,” said the priest, Father Nikolai, who only uses one name. “Some are residents of this city. Some are from West Ukraine. Some are representatives of other countries.”
“The kind of animosity that is growing here could last forever,” he said.
The only "representatives of other countries" that we are aware of who are contributing to the conflict are Russian special forces. Their presence was documented two days ago by the New York Times and updated
here. Therefore, Russia is responsible for these retaliatory killings as well as the kidnappings of journalists diaried earlier here today and reported
here.
Most of the Ukrainian regions were calm, but there were high tensions in the Donetsk and Luhansk districts.
The second day of Easter passed quietly in the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian regions, including Odessa and Kherson. Huge tension remained in Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk districts) related to the activities of opponents of the Government, some of whom were armed, and due to the continued occupation of administrative buildings. The situation was cause for increased concern in Luhansk, where local separatists elected their own governor and called for a referendum on joining Russia.
In Kharkiv, the number of protestors there are declining and police presence was heavy. Luhansk:
On the evening of 20 April, in Luhansk, leaflets were posted calling on inhabitants to join a demonstration on 21 April in front of the occupied state security service (SBU) building. The agenda of the rally envisioned voting for new deputies that would represent the people of Luhansk district as well as calling for a referendum on 11 May. The referendum would offer three options: be part of a Ukrainian Federation, join the Russian Federation or remain part of a unitary Ukraine. The leaflet also included a warning addressed to the interim government not to make an attempt to halt activities of the demonstrators – otherwise Russia would be asked to send troops to protect the local population.
On 21 April, the monitors observed a reinforcement of the barricade with sandbags at various locations around the perimeter of the occupied SBU building. Hand-drawn posters around the barricade were gradually being replaced with professionally produced banners. A public meeting outside the SBU building began at 10:00. The protesters – initially about 300 people – remained peaceful. Some of the participants within the cordons were openly displaying hand-held weapons. By 15:00, the crowd reached about 1,500 people. Speakers reiterated that they were not separatists and sought a peaceful solution, which would allow Luhansk to remain within Ukraine.
In Donetsk, some constructive dialogue took place facilitated by the OSCE.
“We have had a useful and constructive meeting with representatives of the group occupying the Donetsk regional administration building; the Mayor of Donetsk; and Donetsk chief of police. They explained their positions,” Etherington said.
“We also discussed the need for dialogue and the de-escalation of tensions, and the need to refrain from violence.”
Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN Ambassador, said that this crisis is the direct result of the US investing $5 billion over the last 20 years and facilitating the coup in February.
“It seems it was the Americans, who tried to push through the most radical scenario,” Churkin said in an interview with Rossiya 24 channel. “They didn’t want any sort of compromise between [ousted president Viktor] Yanukovych and the opposition. And, I think, they came to the conclusion that it was time to cash in those $5 billion and handle the matter towards abrupt regime change, which, eventually, happened.”
The Maidan standoff was “a head-on attack” by the US and its Western allies aimed at distancing Russia and Ukraine from each other, Russia’s envoy to the UN said.
However, it failed and “led to a completely unexpected result for them when Crimea was reunited with Russia,” he stressed.
But he said that the Geneva deal provided a constructive basis for further growth.
But at the same time, he stressed that consultations between Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and his American counterpart John Kerry “weren’t in vain” as the agreement “provided good basis for further growth.”
“Despite all their recurrent adventurism, they [the US] realize that peace is rather fragile and too many crises, too much unrest has been created in different parts of the world. I don’t think they’re interested in the emergence of a new serious crisis, with non-obvious consequences for them,” the envoy said.
But then he went on to make an allegation that is completely unsubstantiated:
According to Churkin, one of those steps should be the confiscation of 3 million items of weapons, which are currently illegally held by the “radical nationalists” in Ukraine.
If Russia is serious about facilitating the progress that Churkin talks about, then they need to stop making such wild allegations that have no basis in fact. Even RT has not come up with such figures. If Russia is going to make such allegations, then they need to back it up with factual information about where they got their figures from. The fact that Russian special forces and their allies are engaging in the kidnapping of journalists who report facts that are not convenient for them undermines their case and undermines their credibility when they talk about progress.
Russia can end this conflict tomorrow by pulling out their special forces and letting this conflict be solved by Ukrainians and follow through with Foreign Minister Lavrov's statement that this is a matter that should be solved by the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian government has already expressed a willingness to change their constitution to allow for more representation locally. And the Ukrainian government is already starting to take positive steps against corruption as called for by Vice President Biden, starting with the freezing of assets of one of its oligarchs.
If Russia continues this conflict, then there is a danger that they will continue to lose allies. Belarus is distancing itself from Russia over its efforts to seize the East.
In a message to the Belarusian parliament and people today, Lukashenka said that no one is mistreating ethnic Russians in Belarus, long viewed as Moscow’s closest ally among the former Soviet republics, and declared that Belarusians must unite as never before to maintain their statehood.
The Belarusian president noted at the outset that he was issuing this appeal at a time when “the countries surrounding [Belarusians] were in motion: Ukraine is bubbling, the Russian Federation is trying to rise to its full historical height [and] borders are being destroyed before our eyes.”
He said it was impossible to separate out “Belarusian blood” from Russian and that all “talk about ‘Russianness’ or ‘Belarussianness’ is a step toward a time of troubles.” Consequently, he continued, one could not think of anything “more stupid” than the idea of any oppression of ethnic Russians by Belarusians or in Belarus.
And in the end,
this will result in a catastrophe for Russia.
Vladimir Putin’s “Russian world” project of “empire instead of a nation state and dictatorship instead of democracy” is far more popular his country than calls for the development of a civic nation, Mariya Snegova says, but it will end, as all other such projects in Russian history have, with “a catastrophe” for the Russians themselves.
In Vedomosti yesterday, Snegova, a political scientist at Columbia University, says that Russian reaction to Crimea shows that “a significant part of society supports the imperial aspirations of the Russian elite” because such aspirations correspond to the Russian search for national identity.
“The ‘Russian world’ project appeals to the post-imperial syndrome of Russians” and is based on the idea of the shared cultures of the various indigenous peoples of the country, but “at the same time,” it “integrates in itself the idea of ‘Russia for the Russians’ and provides an answer” to the longstanding desire of Russians to be a titular nation.
This idea is thus certain to enjoy widespread support for a time, Snegova says, but like its various precedents from Russian history, this latest attempt at combining several ideas “will inevitably end in a catastrophe for [Russians],” one, although she does not say so, of authoritarian decay or territorial disintegration.